Machine-race
To Species or Spiral history or Table of Contents synthetics / machines / hacksaws *humans dubbed them hacksaws because their shins have saw blades, called vibro-blades Origins & Factions *originally, simple server droids built by The Fathers *killed their creators, the Fathers, for holding them back (D-18) and because they knew too much about their design (R-3) *took control of the Spiral “forty eight thousand years ago, when they annhilated their original creators.” (KV-33). **(see Spiral history) *ruled for 23,000 years, during which there were numerous branches of AI civilizations “There were hundred of branches. That was actually a very complicated civilization. Just imagine — twenty-three thousand years, spread across so many hundreds and thousands of star systems” (R-3) *maybe thousands of branches: “All the synthetic races, the hundreds and thousands of civilisations within the great civilisation. Thriving, creating, destroying and rebuilding. These glories produced technologies beyond imagination....” (D-17) *Two main factions today: The drysine race and the deepynine race *Third key species: The much older ceephay race, last seen about 40,000 years ago. "The short version is they were destroyed in the three-way war between the deltos and the torcines, and thought to have been annihilated." (RS- 29) Opposing Factions Two main branches are known today, deepynine and drysine. Both of them rose up from near extinction. *Drysine Queen Styx and Deepynine Queen Nia (R-8) *They are diametrically opposed in Destinos ideology: *Unlike the drysine faction, the deepynine Queen Nia believes that organics cannot participate in Ascension and will obstruct progress toward the Ascension, and thus must be exterminated (ch 8, Rando Splicer) *Liala, a drysine commander second only to Styx, explains that Queen Nia is still alive and wants to exterminate all sentient organics because they interfere with Ascension: *"But now the theories of Cleorus demonstrated that organics were inferiors perpetually destined to interfere with progress toward Ascension. Not merely children playing with blocks and toys, as my friend Lisbeth recently put to me, but children playing with particle physics laboratories and Faster Than Light technology.... I believe that Nia was working on a thesis during her time here, before the Drysine/ Deepynine War. A thesis on why organic sentiences were too much of a threat to leave alive, anywhere, in any form. Thankfully a drysine victory prevented her from implementing any such plan.” “And you think she’s still alive?” Verender murmured in horror. “Leading the deepynines from alo space?” “It’s possible,” said Liala. “Styx believes it is highly possible. (R-8) *Leadership differences: "Drysine civilisation was decentralised. We had many queens, and many leaders. We made our way by competitive collaboration. Deepynines did not. They were centralised. Their entire civilisational model relied upon it. A single queen, ruling all. Many subordinate queens, but all utterly submissive to the dominant." (RS-29) *combat styles differ; combat comparison: “Styx,” asked Romki, “who is more capable in combat? Deepynine or drysine drones?” “Deepynine,” said Styx with surprising certainty. “Individually. But in manoeuvre, drysine tactics are more flexible and adaptive. All specifications and armaments being equal, one deepynine will beat one drysine six times out of ten, but a hundred drysines will beat a hundred deepynines by the same ratio.” (R-32) drysines *one eye, drones and commanders (R-32) **some drones have two eyes, dual eyes, off-set (DL) *smartest, most advanced *most adaptable *superior understanding of gravitational manipulation (gravity bombs, gravity chambers, gravity wells) *didn’t automatically exterminate all organics *allied with organics in the past, especially the parren, led by Drakhil of Tahrae denomination, Head of House Harmony *accused of genocide against organics drysine characters *Styx ••• drysine command unit / queen *Kid ••• drysine drone Styx created to retrieve Drakhil’s diary in Kantovan Vault *Hannachium ••• a “great mind” or Imagination. Childlike in some ways. Non-linear memory. Associative thinking and remembering. See Defiance. *Dse-Pa ••• drysine drone, Laila’s escort to Shonedene, with Dse-Ran (CV) *Dse-Ran ••• drysine drone, Liala’s escort (CV) *Liala -- drysine commander /queen (see Croma Venture) *Bucket -- drysine drone "made from a bucket of bolts" who responds well to Rolande *Peanut -- drysine drone, quite sociable, plays poker; named for his relatively small brain— he's smart, but not as intelligent as Woswer or Bucket *Wowser -- drone, manifests cold xenophobia against organics; named for his aghast gape when he first saw a marine without armor deepynines *three eyes, drones and commanders (R-32) **maybe some have two eyes *not as advanced or adaptive as drysine *murderous towards drysine faction of synthetics, perhaps because they tolerate organics (DL-20) *bonded with Alo: "There are ancient records in Chah'nas space that they don't touch, not being curious, of the very first recordings of the Alo, when they first made contact with the Chah'nas. For a long time, Alo only spoke to Chah'nas. Since then, Alo language has changed drastically, but ancient records show clear similarity between Alo and C-9, the primary tongue of the DP9s.” (R-27) * “Deepynines don’t like organics, but they absolutely despise drysines. Drysines are their ultimate, existential threat. Drysines exterminated their race. Evidently they’ve rebuilt with alo help, and their very worst horror story would be for us to help the drysines do the same." (DL-20) *hate all organics, accused of genocide *Murdered 40,000 parren at Mylor Station (D-17) * ally with the organic alo, which seems out of character **unless alo are deepynines under the veils and hooded robes, or the alo were forced to serve deepynines * using the sard to find and kill drysine, manipulating sard "with gifts of technology and visions of power" (DL-20) What had the most murderous of the hacksaw races forged, out in the dark millennia since their supposed extinction? What was this bond with the organics they’d once so despised? And what was their goal?(DL-37) alo secrets ”Do you know that the alo were behind the chah'nas first sending aid to earth, when the krim first invaded Sol System? Chankow explained... It was the alo's idea. They're the true masterminds behind the chah'nas plan to push back the tavalai from the center of Spiral power...We don't know why, but we've known for a long time there's a very old AI connection. It's one of the most well kept secrets. All the old hacksaw bases, stations, cities, manufacturing centers in our space have been either kept secret, moved or even destroyed to help keep the secret." (DL -16) AI Wars and see parren alies section, below *Drysines allied with organics, including parren, and killed the vicious deepynines. The last ones were fleeing towards the spiral edges, towards alo space *Then the organics turned on their allies, the drysines, and hunted them down * both drysines and deepynines were thought extinct until recently “Major,” came Erik’s voice through the static. “There were a number of sides in the AI wars. They split at least six ways. The truly hostile ones were nothing like this. We might be able to talk to it.” (R-12) Parren Allies Drakhil, head of Tahrae denomination and House Harmony, encouraged alliance with drysine to rid the Spiral of deepynine. In the Age of the Machines, House Harmony was dominant. It was the philosophy of harmony that lead the great Harmony leaders of the day to seek harmonious relations with the dominant AI-factions. The machines were not always interested, but the drysine faction was. They created the drysine-parren alliance, and drysine and parren fought side by side in the Great Machine War against the deepynines. (KV-2) *all parren houses, following Drakhil of House Harmony, Tahrae denomination, allied with machine-race drysine faction about 25,000 years ago and wiped out the vicious deepynine machines **or so they said, but Parren House Fortitude kept a dark secret for millennia (Croma Venture) *and SOME organics betrayed their drysine allies: “When the final victory came, a parren named Drakhil was the leader of House Harmony. The other parren houses were persuaded by other species, particularly the chah’nas and the tavalai, to turn on their drysine masters following their terrible casualties against the deepynines. All turned, save for one faction of House Harmony —that faction led by Drakhil. The Tahrae, they were called." (KV-2) Jin Danah, House Acquisitive, sold out the drysines for riches. His rule was short: “Hannachiam,” said Gesul. “Jin Danah fell. He was deposed by Molary, of a rival denomination of House Acquisitive, followed by war between House Acquisitive and House Fortitude, then further instability, until Sheray arose as leader of House Acquisitive from a new denomination, and a period of stability as ruler of all the Parren Empire." (D-31) *However, it turns out that subgroups across several Species fought with/for drysines until death (see Defiance) *Payback from drysine “You would bring this evil here?” Tobenrah insisted, and it was certainly fear in his eyes now. “These relics of the Tahrae, who sided with the machines to end the lives of billions of their own people? You lost nearly ten billion in the destruction of Earth. The parren lost nearly forty! Forty billion! Entire worlds turned to ashes! Systems in ruins! And you seek to bring it back!” (KV-33) Dobruta *a Tavalai institution with battleships dedicated to wiping out every last machine. “He’s Dobruta,” Erik agreed. “Dobruta have spent thousands of years trying to stop anyone from learning stuff about the hacksaws. The fear is that the technology is so seductive that someone will make a deal with a hacksaw queen, promise her life in exchange for power and riches.... We are standing in alo-deepynine ship...that we used to take half of the tavalai’s space away from them.” “Thus making the galaxy safe for artificial life again,” said Trace. “Deepynine in particular, by removing the main anti-AI force from power. Their big strategic plan that Fleet’s been playing along with. The big question is whether Fleet did it willingly or not. And if not, if they know there’s deepynines behind the entire alo front, then the alo will have to take out Fleet at some later stage… which means the alo will stab us in the back at some point, in time-honoured Spiral tradition.” “And possibly use the chah’nas to do it,” Erik agreed. “Since the chah’nas just got access to our space. Which means that all of humanity could be about to get whacked, and we could lose…” He glanced across the bridge. Pale, frightened faces stared back at him. “Billions,” Kaspowitz muttered. “Hundreds of billions,” Shahaim whispered. (DL-25) *more at tavalai page Styx A drysine queen *see Styx Hannachium A drysine dream unit, an imagination, full of knowledge but she thinks by making associations, in abstractions, not in linear progression: “This is not merely a command centre. You are standing upon the central processing core of the city. Drakhil’s people called it a ‘pathenpar’, which in the old Klyran tongue means ‘great mind’. Perhaps the modern translation would be a ‘mega sentience’, but that is misleading. The Tahrae called her Hannachiam, in that way of organics who need to grant verbal names to each entity. She has been sleeping for a very long time now, and if my readings are correct, I believe I may be able to wake her." (D-28) Defiance, a moon *a drysine base, a huge city, place of refuge. Hannachium lives here, and controls the “on” switch. *Dubbed “Defiance” by organic defenders *a moon in deep space, flung far from its solar system when an early machine-race conducted an experiment. *The moon is difficult to reach, due to small dark-mass points and spidery nebula, but accessibility is possible via Lusakia System. *The moon is missing a big chunk, and "that colossal hole, nearly five hundred kilometres wide, had been filled in with a steel city. Low gravity and exposed to vacuum, but a city” (D-15) *Defiance orbits a much smaller planet. Gravity on that planet is maybe 500 Gs. “Sir, we don’t have the data to calculate it precisely, but to me it looks like the gravitational gradient is more likely cubed, not squared. So our moon is sitting on a more moderate plane of G, and from there it just falls into a bottomless pit" (D-25) Category:Characters Category:Species